Dead Simple

fallen apart.
    She glanced at her watch. It was 2.35. Tugging her mobile phone from her bag, she rang Jade’s number. Jade said they were still waiting in the queue. Rachael told her she was almost home. She wished her a merry Christmas. Told her to wish Tracey a merry Christmas too, and said she’d see them New Year’s Eve.
    ‘Hope Santa’s good to you, Rach!’ Jade said. ‘And tell him not to forget the batteries if he brings you a vibrator!’
    She heard Tracey cackling in the background.
    ‘Sod off!’ she said with a grin.
    Then she slipped the phone back into her bag and stumbled on, nearly coming a purler as one high heel of her incredibly expensive Kurt Geigers, which she’d bought last week in a sale, caught between two paving stones. She toyed for a moment with the idea of taking them off, but she was almost home now. She tottered on.
    The walk and the rain had sobered her up a little, but she was still too drunk, and too coked up, not to think it was odd that at almost three on Christmas morning a man in a baseball cap a short distance in front of her was trying to lug a fridge out of a van.
    He had it half out and half in as she approached. She could see he was struggling under its apparent weight and suddenly he cried out in pain.
    Instinctively, because she was kind, she ran, stumbling, up to him.
    ‘My back! My disc! My disc has gone! Oh, Jesus!’
    ‘Can I help?’
    It was the last thing she remembered saying.
    She was hurled forward. Something wet slapped across her face. She smelt a sharp, acrid reek.
    Then she blacked out.

NOW

2
    Wednesday 31 December
    Yac spoke into the metal thing on the tall brick wall. ‘Taxi!’ he said.
    Then the gates opened, swanky wrought-iron ones, painted black, with gold spikes along the top. He climbed back into his white and turquoise Peugeot estate and drove up a short, twisting drive. There were bushes on either side, but he did not know what kind they were. He hadn’t got to bushes in his learning yet. Only trees.
    Yac was forty-two. He wore a suit with a neatly pressed shirt and a carefully chosen tie. He liked to dress smart for work. He always shaved, combed his short dark hair forward to a slight peak and rolled deodorant under his armpits. He was aware that it was important not to smell bad. He always checked his fingernails and his toenails before leaving home. He always wound up his watch. He always checked his phone for messages. But he had only five numbers stored on the phone and only four people had his, so it wasn’t often that he received any.
    He glanced at the clock on the dashboard: 6.30 p.m. Good. Thirty minutes to go before he needed to have any tea. Plenty of time. His Thermos sat on the seat beside him.
    At the top the drive became circular, with a low wall in the middle enclosing a fountain that was lit up in green. Yac steered carefully around it, past a quadruple garage door and one wall of the huge house, coming to a halt by steps leading up to the front door. It was a big, important-looking door and it was closed.
    He began to fret. He didn’t like it when passengers weren’t already outside, because he never knew how long he would have to wait. And there were so many decisions.
    Whether to switch the engine off. And if he switched the engine off, should he switch the lights off? But before he switched the engine off he needed to do some checks. Fuel. Three-quarters of a tank. Oil. Pressure normal. Temperature. Temperature was good. So much to remember in this taxi. Including to switch the meter on if they did not come out in five minutes. But most important of all, his drink of tea, on the hour, every hour. He checked the Thermos was still there. It was.
    This wasn’t actually his taxi, it belonged to someone he knew. Yac was a journeyman driver. He drove the hours the guy who owned it did not want to drive. Mostly nights. Some nights longer than others. Tonight was New Year’s Eve. It was going to be a very long one and he had started early. But Yac didn’t mind. Night was good. Much the same as day to him, but darker.
    The front door of the house was opening. He stiffened and took a deep breath, as he had been taught by his therapist. He didn’t really like passengers getting into his taxi and invading his space – except ones with nice shoes. But he had to put up with them until he could deliver them to their destination, then get them out again and be free.
    They were coming out now. The man was tall and slim,